Writer Neil McLeod says the lack of a coherent Brexit plan from the UK Government is shambolic
IT comes as no surprise to have something in the way of confirmation via a leaked memo from consultancy firm Deloitte that the UK Government has no idea what it’s doing on Brexit.
It's like witnessing a group of bricklayers, carpenters and plumbers aimlessly meandering around a potential building site for weeks on end attempting to throw together a rudimentary structure but ultimately revealing they failed to obtain a blueprint or indeed an architect: everything falls apart like a slapstick scene overseen by Laurel and Hardy, except without the laughter.
For all the official denials there patently remains no strategy. Prime Minister Theresa May can keep repeating the mantra "Brexit means Brexit" all she likes but she must by now be failing to even convince herself she knows what she means.
Prime Minister Theresa May can keep repeating the mantra "Brexit means Brexit" all she likes but she must by now be failing to even convince herself she knows what she means.
If Einstein had simply kept claiming "relativity means relativity" we would probably fairly quickly have concluded he wasn’t a genius and didn’t actually know what he was talking about.
We don’t know in any meaningful sense what it means because a simplistic in or out question was put to the British public on a topic that had no simple yes or no answers and no cogent plan.
This is a stark contrast to the Scottish independence referendum when, 10 months prior to the ballot, the SNP government published a 648-page white paper that laid out, in detail, what an independent Scotland might look like.
For the EU referendum there was no white paper. In fact, there was nothing at all on the table; not a programme, not a policy and not a procedural plan, beyond withdrawal itself.
The reason for this was largely the fact that neither Cameron nor anyone else in a position of governmental power thought there was any danger of a majority voting out. They viewed it purely as an internal matter and a mechanism to quell Tory dissent.
We don’t know in any meaningful sense what it means because a simplistic in or out question was put to the British public on a topic that had no simple yes or no answers and no cogent plan.
Despite leading a party jam-packed full or Eurosceptics, and a country full of xenophopia and anti-immigration scaremongering he did little to quell, Cameron still believed he could strengthen his position by silencing these voices and winning a referendum.
This was surely the greatest misjudgement by a British prime minister since Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich triumphantly waving that bit of paper in his hand with Hitler’s written assurances of fair play.
Cameron, of course, didn’t hang around to help clear up the mess he'd created. He’s made his connections as PM and can now ride the gravy train like Blair, Major and Thatcher, making full use of the goodwill and money thrown at him by the thankful corporations he helped in government.
And so what should have been a sideshow continues to be the dominant concern, preventing the proper functioning of much of government and by extension, the country as a whole. The only reason we aren’t noticing the massive dysfunctionality is due to being distracted either by the anaesthetic of Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor or engaging in a full scale global apocalyptic panic about president-elect Trump.
Nicola Sturgeon’s admirable political nous keeps the agenda alive in Scotland, but the lack of any coherent Westminster opposition is, of course, letting this spectacularly incompetent government off the hook.
For the EU referendum there was no white paper. In fact, there was nothing at all on the table; not a programme, not a policy and not a procedural plan, beyond withdrawal itself.
After initially failing to capitalise by spending months on a farcical leadership contest, Labour has now settled into meekly supporting a nice Brexit rather than a nasty Brexit, largely through totally misguided logic ranging from 'it’s what Tony Benn would want' to 'let’s sit back and watch Jeremy Corbyn make a mess of it'.
This enables us to frequently forget the distressing fact that Boris Johnson is the foreign secretary. Bumbling his way around Europe with his foot in his mouth like a dim-witted minor aristocrat from PG Wodehouse.
People like to say "he’s not as daft as he looks" purely to reassure themselves rather than because of anything they’ve ever observed him say or do that is actually intelligent.
It’s simply easier to believe that the government is run by people cunningly concealing their intellect like a poker player hiding a winning hand, rather than contemplate the reality that they really are clueless with a handful of nothing to bring to the table.
Johnson reportedly told a Czech paper the UK was likely to leave the EU customs union post-Brexit but still wanted to trade freely after. However, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said such an option "doesn't exist" and was "intellectually impossible".
Nicola Sturgeon’s admirable political nous keeps the agenda alive in Scotland, but the lack of any coherent Westminster opposition is, of course, letting this spectacularly incompetent government off the hook.
"He's saying things that are intellectually impossible, politically unavailable, so I think he's not offering the British people a fair view of what is available and what can be achieved in these negotiations," he concluded.
Blabbering Boris followed this up by showing his ignorance again by proclaiming that it was a "complete myth" that free movement was one of the fundamental freedoms of the European Union.
In response, the European Parliament's lead negotiator on Brexit, Guy Verhofstadt, tweeted: "Can't wait to negotiate with Boris Johnson, so that I can read him Article 3 of the Treaty of Rome" – this being the section which includes removing "obstacles to freedom of movement for persons".
EU leaders, economists and most anyone who has actually paid attention to the matter have continually warned that the UK cannot expect access to European markets after Brexit unless it accepts the free movement of labour, and that leaving the single market and the customs union would batter manufacturing through tariffs, border checks and country-of-origin rules.
The prime minister has prioritised the unhinged demands of the rightwingers of her party, on whose fragile support she is reliant and the undue influence of Ukip, over any concept of the national interest.
It is hard to quantify just how damaging this will be, but the customs union decision alone is likely to lead to a 4.5 per cent fall in GDP by 2030.
Rather than respond to any of these issues with a constructive, well rounded and fact-based response, Theresa May dismisses all this as "talking Britain down", which is nothing more than vacuous, flag-waving bravado; a rhetoric cut from the same tawdry cloth as Trump’s "Make America Great Again".
It plays well with bigots and the short-sighted sections of the electorate who think you can live on sloganeering alone and ignore any actual economic and social considerations.
All this cluelessness could have been prevented if May had opted for an interim deal, proposing to stay in the EEA as a transitional arrangement. With a five-year notice period the UK could potentially have worked through a gradual departure and an arm’s length trade relationship while remaining in the single market and keeping businesses from relocating to the continent, offering crucial stability and time to a process typified by hysteria.
Rather than anything so thorough or considered, May’s only notable action has been a secretive arrangement with Nissan. This probably included a pledge to compensate it for the effects of future checks and tariffs.
The HMS Britannia is sailing off into the sunset, with its tattered union jack sails blowing it ever more off course, the Brexiteers having mutinied with no concept of navigation, no map and no compass.
Unsurprisingly, the Deloitte memo warns that other firms are almost certain to demand the same. The government’s global industrial strategy thus seems to be to prop up businesses in order to compensate for the self-harm of the government's own policies in hush-hush meetings, a strategy straight out of the how-to-run-a-banana-republic handbook.
The prime minister has prioritised the unhinged demands of the rightwingers of her party, on whose fragile support she is reliant and the undue influence of Ukip, over any concept of the national interest.
The HMS Britannia is sailing off into the sunset, with its tattered union jack sails blowing it ever more off course, the Brexiteers having mutinied with no concept of navigation, no map and no compass.
Scotland is therefore left eyeing the life raft in an effort to reach safer waters.
Picture courtesy of Davide D'Amico
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